THE GANNONS

Well I am starting to feel the crunch of balancing work, school, and family. Honestly this semester has not been so bad, but on Tuesday I received some not so welcoming news. Starting in January I will have to go to school three days a week, instead of just my one day a week:( You can imaging the look on my face when I was told this..and the thoughts that were running through my head. I finally decided that there just isn't enough days in the week.."If we only had eight days instead of seven I could possible go to school three days a week, work three days, and still find the time to crunch in 150 clinical hours by the end of the semester???" Unfortunately my reality is seven twenty-four hour days. Due to this unfortunate conflict between work and school, starting in November I will switching to the weekend shift. This does not make me happy to any extent, however sometimes in life you just have to do what you have to do to be who you want to be. The contract for weekend shift that I will be signing is for six months, so in May I will be able to reassess my situation to If there is still a need for me to stay working the weekends (and i am sure there will be). I keep telling myself that this is just short term, and in the end it will all pay off, however it is hard to visualize the payoff when it is so far away. In the now, all I can think of is all the fun cookouts I will be missing, family dinners, girls nights out, and Saturday night date night with my husband. With that said, I have made a commitment to myself to do whatever it takes to finish the masters program. So if that means busting hump twenty four hours a day, seven days a week then that is what I will do. In the words of D.J., "I would rather be a eagle flying high than a chicken pecking the ground."

O'yeah.. the 150 hours that I mentioned, that is my practicum for one of my education classes. Another shocker..I will be teaching a class next semester at TSU. It will either be in the AD or BSN program. I tried really hard to get a freebie class such as fundamentals of nursing or nursing orientation, but my dean, Dr. Norman (an amazing educator and nurse) would not even here of that. So she basically pushed me to push myself into teaching one of the core nursing classes. I will keep you updated on this project. In the mean time please keep me in your prayers because this is going to be a whole new world for me.